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dubbed Baby or H.M.S. Baby—at that time the name Baby was
frequently applied to small single-seaters.
The Porte Baby was obviously closely related to a large three-
engined flying-boat, powered by three pusher engines, which was
described as a Curtiss type in the 1917 edition (pp. 226b-227b) of
Jane's All the World's Aircraft. The wing structures of the two
boats appeared to be practically identical, but the engines of the
Baby were differently disposed: only the central power unit drove
a pusher airscrew, and the outboard engines were mounted as
tractors. The hull of the Porte Baby, also, appeared to differ from
that of the so-called Curtiss, particularly in the design of the
afterbody.
The first Porte Baby was No. 9800. Its boat-built, plywood-
covered hull was 56ft lOin long and 7ft wide; its maximum beam
over side fins was 14ft, and it had a single step. Power was pro-
vided by three 250 h.p. Rolls-Royce engines of the type which
was to become known as the Eagle; and the aircraft weighed
16,500 lb fully loaded. As on the smaller Curtiss America boats
and the big three-pusher Curtiss, a glazed enclosure was provided
for the pilots.
In its original form the Baby's hull had a relatively short fore-
body, and when tested the boat was found to wallow in a following
sea. The water performance was gready improved by lengthening
the bows by three feet, and the Baby could leave the water fully
loaded in about 35 sec. It was rather underpowered with only
750 h.p.; the maximum speed was 68 kt (78 m.p.h.), and 3,000ft
was reached in 20 minutes.
The Porte Baby was put into production on a very small scale:
twenty were ordered (numbered 9801-9820) and at least ten were
completed by May, Harden and May, of Southampton Water,
a subsidiary of the Aircraft Manufacturing Co. It is believed that
Nos. 9811-9820 were subsequently cancelled, but some of these
later hulls may have been made.
Most references quote three Rolls-Royce engines as the standard
power installation, but some at least of the Babies had a 260 h.p.
Green as the central engine. The production Babies had a modified
form of installation for die outboard engines. Whereas No. 9800
originally had a diamond-shaped configuration of struts at the
rear of the engine mountings, the later installation had only a single
plain interplane strut. Ultimately No. 9800 also conformed to this
arrangement. Performance was improved by the installation of
more powerful marks of Rolls-Royce Eagle engine, and the Baby
which underwent official performance trials in December 1917 and
March 1918 had three Eagle VIIIs. Improved radiators, generally
similar to those of the later F-boats, were fitted to some Babies.
The Porte Baby flying-boats were flown operationally on oversea
patrols from the R.N.A.S. stations at Felixstowe and Killingholme.
When attacked by enemy seaplanes they were too large and slow
to be able to give a good account of themselves in combat; more-
over, the design of the boat did not lend itself to the effective use
of defensive weapons. Some had a Scarff ring-mounting on a
cockpit in the bows, but in die main reliance was placed on guns
fired through windows.
Just after 4 p.m. on October 1st, 1917, the Baby flown by Fit.
Cdr. N. Sholto Douglas and F/L. B. D. Hobbs was attacked by two
enemy seaplanes and a landplane near the North Hinder Light
Vessel, off the Dutch coast. The other members of the Baby's
crew were Lt. M. W. W. Cross, R.N.V.R. (engineer), Sub-Lt.
H. O. Fry (armament officer), and Air Mechanics C. Spikings and
H. M. Davies. During the unequal combat Hobbs evaded the
enemy's attacks for 20 minutes, and a hot fire was maintained by
the flying-boat's gunners. The port and centre engines were shot
about and stopped, and the Baby was forced to alight on the sea.
During the fight A/M. Spikings continued to fire at the enemy
after the engines near him were on fire and he had been scalded.
Thanks to his gallantry, the enemy machines were prevented from
closing effectively with the Porte boat, but once it was on the
water they machine-gunned it as it lay helpless, and wounded
A/M. Davies.
Nevertheless, the Baby's crew managed to repair the engines
sufficiently to enable the boat to taxi slowly westwards. Despite
his badly burned hands Spikings worked for several hours during
the night on the engines. After a long and difficult journey, the
craft managed to reach Sizewell Gap, on the Suffolk coast, by
1.30 a.m. on October 2nd. From there it was towed back to
Felixstowe. After this near-disaster, the Porte Babies were never
again used to patrol areas in which they would be likely to be
attacked.
One of the Babies was used in experiments with torpedoes: it
flew in April 1916 with two 14in torpedoes under its lower wings,
but it is uncertain whether any attempt to drop the missiles was
made. The prototype Baby, No. 9800, had a six-pounder Davis
non-recoil gun mounted experimentally on its bows, probably as
an anti-submarine weapon, for it would have been over-optimistic
to consider the Porte Baby as an anti-Zeppelin aircraft.
From the historical point of view, the most interesting experi-
ment in which a Porte Baby participated was the remarkable
"composite" flight which was made in May 1916. This was a bold
attempt to combine die speed and manoeuvrability of a single-seat
The aircraft with the Porte I hull was designated F.I and became first
of the line. (Above) The Porte Baby and Bristol Scout C "composite."
scout wim the long range of a large flying-boat; the object of the
experiment was to provide an effective anti-Zeppelin weapon.
A Bristol Scout C (No. 3028, one of diose belonging to the sea-
plane carrier H.M.S. Vindex) was placed on the upper wing of
a Porte Baby with its undercarriage just in front of the leading-
edge. The Scout's wheels rested in crutches which were braced
to the engine bearers of the flying-boat's central power unit, and
its tail skid was held by a quick-release catch which was operated
by the pilot of the Scout.
On May 17m, 1916 the Baby took off from Felixstowe with the
Scout in place. The flying-boat was flown by Sqn. Cdr. Porte,
the Bristol by F/L. M. J. Day. When the combination had
reached 1,000ft Day switched on his engine and climbed away.
Despite this success, however, the experiment was never repeated.
It appears that the Porte Baby was long-lived, for two examples
of die type were still on charge with the R.A.F. at the end of
October 1918.
No attempt had been made to develop the design of the Baby,
however. Before the production Babies appeared—possibly even
before No. 9800 itself was completed—John Porte tested a com-
pletely new type of hull on the Curtiss H.4 No. 3580. This hull
was named die Porte I, and the modified H.4 to which it was fitted
was the true progenitor of the line of Felixstowe F-boats. The
new hull was built at Felixstowe air station, and in its ultimate
form fulfilled Porte's desire to produce a hull which combined
structural strength with hydrodynamic efficiency.
The chief interest of the Porte I hull lay in its structure. Basic-
ally it differed little from the fuselages of most contemporary
iandplanes, for it consisted of a sturdy cross-braced box-girder to
which were added a vee-shaped planing bottom, and side fins.
From bows to sternpost the hull was 36ft 2in long, and its maxi-
mum beam was 8ft; die side fins were about 25 ft long. The top
longerons of the basic structure were quite straight in side eleva-
tion; this raised the tail higher than that of any of the earlier
experimental machines and gave a fore-and-aft angle of 18 degrees.
The keel line was a smooth curve from stem to stern. Unlike its
predecessors, the Porte I had open cockpits.